Yellow Emperor
The
Yellow Emperor or
Huang Di () is a
legendary
Chinese sovereign and
cultural hero who is said to be the ancestor of all
Han Chinese. One of the
Five Emperors, the Yellow Emperor is said by tradition to have reigned from
2698 BC to
2599 BC.
The legend of his westwards retreat in the war against the eastern Emperor
Chi You (蚩尤) at the
Battle of Zhuolu (涿鹿) is seen as the establishment of the
Han Chinese nationality.
Among his other accomplishments, the Yellow Emperor has been credited with the invention of the principles of
Traditional Chinese medicine.
Nèijīng (内經,
The Medical Canon of the Yellow Emperor), was supposedly composed in collaboration with his
physician Qi Bó (岐伯). However, modern historiographers generally consider it to have been compiled from ancient sources by a scholar living between the
Zhou and
Han dynasties, more than 2,000 years later. His interest in natural health and preventing and treating diseases meant he is said to have lived to the age of 111, and to have attained immortality after his physical death.
In the legend, his wife
Lúo Z" (螺祖) taught the Chinese how to weave the
silk from
silkworms, and his historian
Cāng Jié (倉頡) created the first Chinese characters.
Legend says that the Yellow Emperor invented the
compass during a battle against Chi You who used a sandstorm as
camouflage to hide his army. Thanks to the compass, the Yellow Emperor found out where Chi You was and defeated him. The swirling chair in his chariot was also a compass so that he would always face south, which the Chinese people consider to be good
Feng Shui. He is also said to have played a part in the creation of the
Guqin, together with
Fuxi and
Shennong, and to have invented the earliest form of the
Chinese calendar, and its current
sexagenary cycles are counted based on his reign.
The actual existence of the Yellow Emperor is questionable, at best. The period of his reign precedes written history in China by more than a thousand years. Thus, the tales of his exploits might easily be embellished or even altogether apocryphal.
*Huang Di appears as a God in the
strategy game Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom made by the now defunct company
Sierra Entertainment. In the game he is a patron of hunting and has the skills needed for leading men into battle.
*There have been TV dramas made in mainland China depicting the life of Huang Di. However, their historical accuracy is questionable. They are semi-fictional because their focus is mainly on
martial arts,
Wuxia and
drama.
*
Emperor of China*
Three August Ones and Five Emperors*
The Yellow Emperor
